If you're looking for ancient literature bringing style, heart, and heat—then Sophus Helle's translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh is for you! 💪💯

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this book! I came to this after two separate allusions to this text in as many days, and figured the universe was trying to tell me something. I settled on Helle's translation as people praised it for preserving the meaning of the text while balancing captivating prose (it also included some of the more recently uncovered fragments at the time of its printing). While I can't really speak to how well the original meaning of Gilgamesh was translated (since that's entirely beyond me), Helle's passion for the text shines through in the way he employed various rhetorical strategies to honor the energy of the original cuneiform text while engaging modern English speaking audiences—he worked his words from the get-go, delivering on the promise that the rest of his translation will live up to the commanding opening lines:

"There was a man who saw the deep, the bedrock of the land, who knew the ways and learned all things"

The epic itself is fairly short, and the bulk of this book is taken by a introduction and essays that provide extra context, sections that Helle describes as "need-to-know" and "nice-to-know" respectively—none of which came off as dry or unaproachable at any point. As someone who enjoys both fiction and non-fiction, this was fantastic as I got to be swept away in the brashness of Gilgamesh and Enkidu's exploits and then gain more clarity on how their actions would've been understood in ancient Akkadian and Babylonian cultures.

Now, admdmittedly, this is the first epic I've read (my schools didn't make the Odyssey or the like required reading), but the presumed genre conventions of a manly hero going on a quest for glory holds true in Gilgamesh—with some fun additions. One of which being the style of a story within a story, stressing the theme of communal knowledge and the importance of narrative. And the other being the enemies to friends to (dare I say) lovers dynamic between Gilgamesh and Enkidu which builds the emotional core of the epic.

It was really special to read an immortal story and see what meanings different people have walked away with at different points in history and then ponder on what relationship you have with this epic in a long chain of people who have experienced it.